Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’.Photo:Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Martin Scorsesefound Lily Gladstone andLeonardo DiCapriomade for a compelling couple in his latest movie.
During a recent press conference for 80-year-old Scorsese’sKillers of the Flower Moon, the famed filmmaker said that “the heart of the story” told in his film lies within 37-year-old Gladstone’s character, an Osage woman named Mollie Burkhart whose family members are murdered throughout the movie.
“She had a good relationship with Leo,” Scorsese said of Gladstone. “I think you could see it in thescene where he’s driving the cab and she’s in the backseatand she’s saying things in Osage and he says, ‘What’d you just call me? I don’t know what you just said, but it must be Indian for a handsome devil.’ "
“And she starts laughing,” he adds. “That’s a total improv.”
DiCaprio, 48, plays Ernest Burkhart inKillers of the Flower Moon, a man who moves to Osage County, Oklahoma in the early 1920s to seek work with his uncle, local businessman William K. Hale (Robert De Niro). Ernest meets, falls in love with and marries Molly — a wealthy woman from her family’s share of oil-abundant land in the area — soon after his arrival in the county.
JaNae Collins, Lily Gladstone, Cara Jade Myers and Jillian Dion in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’.Apple Tv+
Apple Tv+
“And so that really hit it from that moment on, they took off trusting each other, working together and enjoying each other too,” Scorsese said of how the actors approached the characters' romance. Scorsese even noted that while the couple fell in love, Molly “enjoyed the charm of the scoundrel — and she knew he was [a] scoundrel [who] says he wants money.”
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Killers of the Flower Moon,based on a true story,depicts Ernest and Molly’s relationship during several years in the 1920s during which white settlers in Oklahoma orchestrated plots to murder a number of members of the Osage Nation in order to obtain their headrights to the tribe’s oil deposits.
The movie is adapted from author David Grann’s 2017non-fiction book of the same name, which centers on the FBI’s investigation into the murders. Scorsese, however, decided to take a different route with the film to prevent it from playing like a typical murder-mystery.
“In reality, it wasn’t a matter of who did it. I wanted to show who didn’t do it,” he said during the press conference.
Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’.Melinda Sue Gordon/Apple
Melinda Sue Gordon/Apple
“He said, ‘You’re going to kill me. I want to play Ernest now,’ " the filmmaker recalled DiCaprio saying. He went on to explain that centering the film’s tragedies around Ernest and Mollie’s relationship.
“Here you see how it could work out on a day-to-day basis, not just a villain’s [reveal],” Scorsese added. “No, here you see it in the bedroom and in the kitchen and with the children. That’s interesting.”
Killers of the Flower Moonis in theaters Oct. 20.
source: people.com
